Donor Recognition

This project is made possible through the generous donations of money, time and materials from the following people. If you would like more information about supporting this work, please click here for more information. We would like to thank all these people for their generous support!


Monetary Donations
(Click link for report)


Donated Materials (Presented in alphabetical order of donor's surname.)

  • Judy Barrett donated several issues of rare Porter Seed Company catalogs from 1940s to the 1960s. She is a Texas-based organic gardening writer. Check out her site (which contains issues of her "Homegrown" magazine) as well as many other resources for Texas gardeners.

  • Barbara Barth donated a bunch of lithographed seed catalog covers and pages that she had acquired.  Barbara sells on eBay as blynne. Be sure to check out her auctions from time to time.

  • FasterBooks.net - They specialize in hard to find, out of print, used, and rare books. Sold us a several of the books in the "Principal American Varieties" series at a discount.

  • Mark Futterman - Mark's contribution of content to the library, in the form of 33 bankers boxes of rare and interesting book titles, is our largest to date, (02/21/23). It is an amazing contribution and we feel a profound responsibility to be proper stewards of his life's work. Read more about the collection by clicking here.

  • Jere Graham, from Traverse City, Michigan, contacted us in December of 2018 looking for a new home for the complete collection of Yearbook of Agriculture volumes (1893 - 1992) that he had collected over the past fifty years. He packed up over sixty pounds of books, four large boxes worth and shipped them out to our care.

  • James R. Huber - Jim had been interested in agricultural history for years. He was a motivating force behind the republication of A. W. Livingston's book, "Livingston and the Tomato". Within the local Reynoldsburg, Ohio area, he was involved with the Livingston House and worked with a local state historical farm. He donated many catalog page scans. Jim passed away in February of 2004.

  • Jane Murphy has donated a collection of old USDA agriculture bulletins from the 1920s and 1930s. Her connection to farming goes back several generations and her father sold seed corn back in the 1950s. Jane sells interesting items on eBay under the name WinterGal28.

  • Wayne Pearson of California who donated several old seed catalogs in memory of his Aunt Emmy (Pearson) Roebeck. Emmy had save these catalogs from the 1930s and early 1940s and Wayne thankfully saved them from being discarded, located us and donated them to the collection.

  • David Pendergrass donated an HP ScanJet scanner. A very critical part of getting the public domain hardcopies of our library converted.  (Refer to David's biographical information below)

  • Julie Phroper donated a collection of nursery business ephemera with examples from the 1940s into the 1960s. Companies represented include Henry Field, Wagoner, Benton County Nurseries, Ozark Nurseries, East's, The Lehman Gardens, Fairbury, Yager, Farmer Seed & Nursery, Swedburg, Columbia & Okanogan, J. E. Miller, Musser Forests, Asgrow, Inter-State, Willis, Shumway, and more. Julie sells various items on eBay under the name catfurtomakekittybritches.

  • In Memory of John Rezelman, of Bath, New York, by his daughters. Mr. Rezelman graduated from Cornell University College of Agriculture in 1941. At Cornell he met Mary Ellen Gillett, they were married in 1942. They moved to Bath where he served as Steuben County Manager for Farm Credit Association of Olean for 38 years. He was very proud to have "traveled extensively -- in Steuben County" and knew its roads, agriculture and farmers well. John amassed an extensive collection of books, magazines and other ephemera related to farming and horticultural topics. He was passionate about gardening and sustainable living, and very creative at making things and working with wood. A gifted cartoonist, writer and poet, in 2010 he published a book on the history of potato farming in Steuben County, a story he very much wanted to have preserved. We are honored to help the family preserve his agricultural library as well as his memory. Click here for a list of titles donated.

  • Ted Sobel has donated several early 20th century agricultural textbooks and other agricultural literature. Ted retired from Cornell University working his career in Agricultural Engineering. He operates THE COUNTRY STORE which includes The White Church Cabin in Brooktondale, New York, where their motto is "Items of Old-Fashioned Practical Value" and sells on eBay as wc3s.  Additionally he started an organization called Babbage's Basement which works to recycle computers and electronics, keeping them out of landfills and in the hands of folks who could not otherwise afford the technology. He has retired from Babbages to operate The Store, but Babbages still lives on. You can read more about this work at http://www.babbagesbasement.com and http://homepage.mac.com/tedsobel.

  • Kevin Walker donated several Yearbook of Agriculture copies and several miscellaneous horticulture related titles to the library.


Time

  • Mike  Dunton - Although ownership of the Victory Seed Company has been passed to the Whitinger Family in Texas, Mike founded the company from his family's farm in Oregon. Mike's life still revolves around family, history, research, gardening, and of course, seed variety preservation. He donates his time to developing and maintaining this web resource.

  • Kurt Harlan of Lasting Impressions Networks - Back in 2000, Kurt donated his talents to help us with the initial setup of our Linux server and got Mike Dunton motivated to learn Linux and Apache. Kurt provides great support for both home users and business clients. Contact him at the link above.

  • James R. "Jim" Huber - Jim, now deceased, had been interested in agricultural history for years. He was the motivating force behind the republication of A. W. Livingston's book, "Livingston and the Tomato".  Within the local Reynoldsburg, Ohio area, he was involved with the Livingston House and worked with a local state historical farm. He donated many scans to the archive.

  • Craig LeHoullier - Dr. LeHoullier, a chemist by training and profession, developed an interest in gardening at a young age while spending time in his grandfather's garden. His interest in gardening coupled with his scientific nature led him to work evaluating hybrid performance to that of heirlooms. He eventually focused almost exclusively on researching and evaluating family and commercially released historical varieties. Probably his most well known introduction is the tomato variety, 'Cherokee Purple'.  Along with his contributions of catalog images to this site, Craig has supplied mother stock seed to the Victory Seed Company for many of the Livingston tomatoes as well as numerous other old varieties.  Several of his own stabilized tomato crosses were introduced commercially by Victory Seeds as well.

  • Melanie Inangelo - Melanie is involved with heirloom seeds and is a SSE member from Maine. She also collects old seed catalogs and other horticulture reference books.

  • David Pendergrass - David farmed land that had been in his family for many generations in Middle Tennessee. He was deeply interested in historical agriculture and collected old tools,  catalogs and publications to aide in his hands-on research. David raised seed for the Victory Seed Company. Several of those varieties were heirlooms from his family and others are old commercially released varieties that although once popular, particularly in the Southern States, but that had become commercially rare.


Major Funding and Support For This Project Provided By:

  • The Victory Horticultural Group, LLC works to keep family heirlooms and interesting commercially released seed varieties available to home gardeners. Their seeds can be purchased at the Victory Seed Company. Victory Horticultural Group, LLC provides the physical library assets, office space, internet connection, electricity, and the manpower to maintain the web site and keep it running.


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